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Berényi Péter at 07:54 AM on 13 November 2010Skeptical Science moving into solutions
#23 Roger A. Wehage at 06:40 AM on 13 November, 2010 Trying to educate the upper echelon is not working, so the only recourse may be to start at the bottom. Bring in Climate Change Denial Psychologists to learn how to sway the masses. There is a name for this political agenda, but I am not going to stress it here due to comments policy. -
Berényi Péter at 07:33 AM on 13 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
#123 michael sweet at 03:40 AM on 13 November, 2010 What do you suggest people will do in 200 years when all the oil, gas and coal have been used up? There is no way carbon based geo-fuels could be exhausted on such a short timescale. If they were, large scale conversion of CaCO3 (limestone) into carbon dioxide should be started, as atmospheric CO2 is expected to be in short supply by that time, with detrimental consequences to plant life. The byproduct, CaO (quicklime) by reacting with omnipresent H2O turns into Ca(OH)2 (slack lime). If it gets into the seas somehow, a dangerous ocean basification can occur (milk of lime is a moderately strong base with pH 12.3). Some more advanced geochemistry is clearly needed to neutralize the stuff. In 200 years carbon is supposed to become the default construction material for practically all purposes because of its unique chemical and mechanical properties. Airborne CO2 being the most obvious source (a convenient shortcut for transportation issues), shortage is a real danger indeed in absence of appropriate replenishment. The most likely energy supply is both solar (with photochemical energy capture/storage releasing O2 into the environment with electricity generation on demand in fuel cells using atmospheric O2) and nuclear breeder technology utilizing the thorium cycle. -
Roger A. Wehage at 06:40 AM on 13 November 2010Skeptical Science moving into solutions
Trying to educate the upper echelon is not working, so the only recourse may be to start at the bottom. Bring in Climate Change Denial Psychologists to learn how to sway the masses. -
KirkSkywalker at 05:57 AM on 13 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
What physical evidence does global-warming have, other than ice-core samples?Moderator Response: This thread is narrowly focused on concepts related to assessing statistical significance.
General discussion of broad categories of evidence for global warming should go in an appropriate thread, such as this or this.
Also, please note that in a series of visits over the past month, you've left at least five versions of the same comment about ice cores, in five different threads. Most of them have now been deleted or redirected here.
Please try to post your comments in the appropriate thread and then stick with them there, rather than spreading discussions across many different threads. This helps make the site more readable for everyone. -
Berényi Péter at 05:31 AM on 13 November 2010Climate cherry pickers: cooling oceans
#18 Ken Lambert at 01:38 AM on 13 November, 2010 Dr Trenberth found a theoretical 'observed' 145E20 Joules/year energy imbalance (0.9 W/sq.m) For God's sake! There is no such a thing as "theoretical 'observed' energy imbalance". It is either theoretical or observed. Now, Trenberth 2009 is clear enough.- The observed imbalance is 6.4 W/m2
- This observation is inconsistent width model calculations
- Therefore observed imbalance is crap, models must be correct
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Steve L at 04:15 AM on 13 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
Thank you Dr Ambaum, I'm sure to use this explication elsewhere. I noticed the fallacy between #2 and #3, but I thought power analysis was going to come into play as a patch (actually, I initially flinched at #3 because the scientist should be thinking that noise + effect is being observed). Typically when one fails to detect a 'significant' effect, one can't accept the null hypothesis but can do a power analysis to determine the strength of effect that he/she should have been able to detect. On the flip side, however, a frequentist wouldn't worry too much if he/she detected a 'significant' effect -- the problem with power only really occurs in one direction. Your post here is about a broader issue than I first thought, and you are saying that frequentist statistics are always(?) misleading relative to Bayesian methods. I'll have to look at this more carefully (I keep telling myself to learn the Bayesian approach, but I still haven't sat down and done it). I had thought that the main misuse of frequentist statistics was in post-hoc analyses of existing data from uncontrolled experiments. That was the other thing I thought you were getting at: that JOC authors were obtaining data, visualizing them, and then deciding to do frequentist tests (after conscious or sub-conscious pre-selection). That's obviously wrong, to me, and I know it happens in my field (biology). I didn't think planned application of frequentist stats in a controlled experimental design was problematic. Time to learn... -
DSL at 04:12 AM on 13 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
Agreed, Andrew -- and hooray for the Peirce sighting. Semioticians rejoice. -
michael sweet at 03:40 AM on 13 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
RSVP: What do you suggest people will do in 200 years when all the oil, gas and coal have been used up? Or what part of "nonrenewable energy" do you not understand? Maybe they will all move back into caves and make stone tools. Or is it more likely they will have developed renewable energy sources? Since this change has to be done at some time, why don't we try it now instead of damaging the environment with the last dregs of fossil carbon. The exact time when fossil fuels will run out is hotly debated, but they will eventually run out. Then society will develop sustainable energy. -
Bob Lacatena at 03:35 AM on 13 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
I'm unsure why people are so quick to ascribe global warming to pirates, when clearly the opposite is more like, i.e. that global warming is causing a precipitous decline in the number of pirates. This only makes sense, as the increased heat will tend to make our young people lethargic, and so less likely to get up to go to pirate tryouts, and to attend piracy school. Also, paleoclimate data has shown (with statistical significance) that piracy changes lag temperature changes by several hundred years. At the same time, as someone whose brain hurts whenever I think about probabilities in any sense beyond my chances of finally winning the lottery, I must admit that I find statistics and statisticians as annoying as piracy and pirates... perhaps even more so. If only global warming had such a negative impact on statisticians! Alas, and alack, I fear that the opposite is the case. I'm far more cognizant of statisticians in this woefully warming world. I also have no doubt that statisticians keep Bayesian eye patches in their desk drawers, to be worn in complete secrecy in the privacy of their lairs, while performing their heinous acts of statismancy and probabalism. The line between pirate and statistician is, I fear, as blurry as the line between p(M|N) and p(N|M). Arg. -
Ned at 02:39 AM on 13 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
HR, I think your original remarks about the GISS report were way off base, and I don't think your subsequent effort to retroactively salvage them is particularly justifiable. They wrote that at the end of a very hot summer which saw both the record-breaking 12-month high temperature and a series of high-publicity stories about the heat wave in Russia, etc. If GISS operated the way that many "skeptics" imagine, they could have easily issued a summary that did exactly what you initially assumed it did -- ascribe everything to AGW and not even mention the role of natural variability. Instead, they provided a summary in more or less neutral terms that discusses natural variability at very great length. IMHO the fact that their efforts were apparently not enough for you says much more about your biases than theirs. (Though I obviously am coming from a different point of view; it's possible that their summary seems more reasonable to me because I'm predisposed to agree with them.) HumanityRules continues: If the GISS document can say that the 1998 temperature was boosted by El Nino why can't it acknowledge that 2010 was also boosted. Instead it tries to focus on the cooling aspects of the developing La Nina. They point out correctly that 2010 was influenced by a moderate El Nino that then transitioned fairly rapidly to a La Nina. In contrast, 1997-1998 had an El Nino that was either the largest on record, or second largest (after 1983, depending on which index you follow). Look at the data in the NCAR paper you cited. This past year's ONI (index based on the Nino 3.4 region) peaked at 1.8, and was above 1.5 for a grand total of two months. In contrast, for 1997-1998 it peaked at 2.5 (the highest value in the 60-year record), and it was above 1.5 for eight months, not two. If you believe that El Nino has a significant impact on temperatures, then why can't you accept that a monster El Nino (like 1998) would have a much larger impact on temperatures than the comparatively modest El Nino of 2010? So, to me, it frankly looks like you're being rather unreasonable. GISS talked about El Nino appropriately, and appropriately noted that the most likely reason why 2010 may not break the all-time calendar year record is because the El Nino was relatively modest in magnitude and rapidly transitioned to La Nina. Seriously, how much more can you ask? It seems like you wouldn't be satisfied unless GISS came out and ascribed the entirety of 2010's warmth to natural cycles. Or perhaps you want them to pretend that the 2010 El Nino was as large as the 1998 one, even though it obviously wasn't? -
Paul D at 02:38 AM on 13 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
Actually there might be a tenuous link with pirates and warming. eg. I think it was the Royal Navy that eliminated a lot of piracy. But they had to chop a lot of trees down to do it, plus the age of ironclads and battleships (coal use) meant pirates needed to be more sophisticated with access to a better income stream to afford a steam boat with heavy guns. Also piracy became a state sanctioned aim during the world wars with submarines, but the motive wasn't to steal produce. Although maybe that was the Nazis big mistake. They should of stolen the convoys, rather than sinking them? -
Andrew Mclaren at 02:32 AM on 13 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
Really, this is a very formalized demonstration of why syllogistic argumentation is not a conclusive or reliable means of establishing truth-values. I'm reminded that the great US philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (19th C) whose father Benjamin Peirce was a pioneer in statistical theory (esp. outliers) himself, admonished his readers that any argument depending on syllogism was to be implicitly mistrusted. He claimed the better means of understanding is by examining the substantial implications and possibilities of relations between things exhaustively, instead of attempting to fit them into formal logic. Still good advice over a Century later! -
cynicus at 02:31 AM on 13 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
I recently saw an article in a journal that supported AGW but the numbers weren't significant at the p<0.05 level. So AGW isn't real because every supporting evidence needs to be above the 95% certainty level. Oh, wait...this isn't WUWT? -
CBDunkerson at 02:06 AM on 13 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
Hoooray! We're saved. Daniel's chart 'proves' that global warming is caused by lack of pirates... but in the past several years piracy has been booming off the coast of Somalia! We should start seeing temperatures turn around now! :] -
Daniel Bailey at 01:57 AM on 13 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
Re: Alexandre (1) To illustrate your point:
Of course, some will argue that the recent surge in piracy is the cause of the "perceived flattening of the global temperature rise". Sigh.
In life and statistics, some will see only what they expect to see.
The Yooper
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Alexandre at 01:45 AM on 13 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
I was playing around with statistics a few weeks ago. It helps me understand Tamino :-) Then this claim below crossed my mind, just like Dr. Ambaum: In the meantime, we need to live with the fact that “statistically significant” results are not necessarily in any relevant sense significant. I think you could statistically correlate car sales and global warming, for instance, and it would mean nothing. It's the underlying physics AND the statistics that will give you the evidence - which is the case. -
CBDunkerson at 01:39 AM on 13 November 2010Ice-Free Arctic
Norman, let me ask you something. The stuff you are promoting suggests that the decline of Arctic sea ice has just been a 'natural cycle' which should end 'any time now' (actually about ten years ago). You've convinced yourself that the past nine years are 'flat' (for the record, they look more like 'straight down' to me) and thus that the inevitable ice growth of the natural cycle is right around the corner. If five years from now Arctic ice has grown considerably I'd be absolutely shocked and need to re-examine how the apparently overwhelming indications to the contrary could all have been so wrong. So here's the question... if in five years Arctic sea ice is instead sharply lower even than current levels will that be an indication to you that something is very wrong with what you have chosen to believe? Or will you just accept whatever the new 'skeptic' explanation is (my money is on, 'oh we expected the Arctic to melt out entirely all along... this is completely normal and really happens all the time') and go on disbelieving all evidence to the contrary? -
Ken Lambert at 01:38 AM on 13 November 2010Climate cherry pickers: cooling oceans
Humanity Rules #13, #16 Excellent comments HR. What the promoters of CO2GHG theory have to consider is that the total sum of the forcings is what counts. If S-B cooling and cloud albedo cooling are offsetting CO2GHG warming and WV feedbacks at such a scale that warming is flattening or being arrested - then the accumulation of energy in the biosphere must also be flattening. Dr Trenberth found a theoretical 'observed' 145E20 Joules/year energy imbalance (0.9 W/sq.m) with a 'residual' of 30-100E20 Joules/year unaccounted. ie Av 65E20 Joules/year out of 145E20 Joules/year is unaccounted. This is 80/145 or 0.5/0.4W/sq.m split. What must be explained is that better measurement by Argo since 2004 shows flattening increase (or no increase) in OHC at a period when CO2GHG warming and WV feedback are at their highest theoretical levels. If better measurement of OHC content converges on less OHC increase then other cooling factors must be at play - cloud albedo and S-B are prime candidates. -
CBDunkerson at 01:24 AM on 13 November 2010Real experts don't know everything
Norman #64: "Climate models predicted a warming Arctic and the current warming found in the region may seem to verify the model is accurately predicting what is going on (CO2 increase by man is heating the Arctic region and causing increased summer ice melting). However this arcticle points out that another forcing factor is better at explaining what is going on in the Arctic then the AGW theory." Chylek's claim of correlation between the AMO and Arctic sea ice decline, followed by the assumption that this supposed correlation equals causation, is (like AGW theory) a theoretically possible explanation. However, the claim that the issue ends there with two possible explanations is pure nonsense. We can gather data and test these ideas to see whether they hold up or not. If the AMO were responsible for Arctic sea ice decline then we should have seen a reversal to increasing Arctic sea ice some time around 2000. The AMO period isn't absolutely fixed so it could run over a few years, but we're now at ten and the decline of Arctic sea ice is still accelerating. In short, data contradicting this idea is accumulating. Every year the ice continues to decline is another year against it. Also, if this were just a case of oscillation within normal climate bounds the long term average should be flat... but it isn't. Ice volume now is lower than it was during the last AMO cycle. That indicates that we aren't just dealing with an oscillation that moves heat back and forth, but rather an increase in the total heat input. On the other hand when we go to check AGW theory against data we find that ocean temperatures world-wide are increasing, that some of this warmer water is flowing into the Arctic from the Pacific and contributing to melt, that LAND ice is also melting (AMO obviously isn't causing that), that we see changes in upwards and downwards radiation matching what AGW should cause, that the warming is seasonal (more pronounced in Winter) as it should be under AGW (and would not be if AMO were responsible), and a thousand other things which match up. So no... it isn't just two different ideas about what could be happening. It is one idea which fits the observed facts and one which does not. -
Tom Dayton at 01:02 AM on 13 November 2010The science isn't settled
BP, of course Galileo's conclusion of mountains on the moon could be expressed probabilistically. That particular case would be one in which most people would not bother using that terminology, because the probability was so high that such terms would be "downright silly," as I wrote. Contrast with early scientists' conclusions of the existence of canals on Mars, based on their telescopic observations. -
HumanityRules at 00:55 AM on 13 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
That last comment was extremely long winded, i'll summarize it. This NCAR page tabulates the ENSO index. Look at 1997/998 and 2009/2010. While the magnitude of the peaks are different the timing is pretty similar. If the GISS document can say that the 1998 temperature was boosted by El Nino why can't it acknowledge that 2010 was also boosted. Instead it tries to focus on the cooling aspects of the developing La Nina. That is bias because it doesn't wish to assign any of the anomoly to natural variation. Almost like an anti-Art Horn it throws in a couple of out-of-the-blue sentances about CO2 to show it's real intent. If you can accept that Art is agenda driven I don't understand why you can't see it in GISS. -
HumanityRules at 00:31 AM on 13 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
53.Ned Ned thanks for the heads up on the other thread, I don't read this website as religiously as I used to which means I don't bother so much to follow up on comments. You were right that I didn't bother reading the GISS article, I've become too cynical about what they put out, I guess I was making the comment on the strength of the GISS quotes John used in his article. But prompted by you I did read it. Unlike you I will quote the GISS article in all the places were they make direct reference to how ENSO has an affect on short term temperature trends.(sorry for the length) "2010 was a bit cooler than 2009 mainly because a moderate El Niño" "The low latitude temperature anomaly was less than in 1998, as the recent El Niño was much weaker than the one in 1998." "Regardless of how long the current La Niña extends, the next two or three seasonal-mean global and low latitude temperature anomalies are likely to be cooler" "The maps compare January-August temperature anomalies for 2010, 2005 (the warmest year in the GISS analysis), and 1998 (one of the warmest years in the GISS analysis, the temperature being boosted by the "El Niño of the century"). 2010 is clearly the warmest of these years for the first eight months." "However, the 4th section of Figure 4 shows that the monthly anomalies in 2010 have declined steadily over the past five months as the Pacific Ocean moved into the La Niña phase." "Given the dominant effect of El Niño-La Niña on short-term temperature change and the usual lag of a few months between the Nino index and its effect on global temperature, it is unlikely that 2011 will reach a new global record temperature." There are other reference to ENSO but I don't think they link them to specific descriptions of particular short term trends. Notice anything? Well it strikes me that most (if not all) of these comments are focused on explaining away cooler conditions in 2010 (2011??) by ENSO. The one that comes closest to talking about warming is misleading. The long one that starts "The warms compare...." acknowledges that an El Nino boosted the temperature in 1998, what it fails to mention is that the 2010 temperature was boosted by El Nino in a similar way. How could they make such an admission? I concede that when GISS have to explain a cooling phenomenon they are happy to invoke ENSO as an explanation. My problem really is when they come to describe warm or warming periods, such as the summer of 2010 they neglect to adequately assign any of that warming to the prevailing ENSO condition. I'll have a go at it myself. /Fig4 shows that while ENSO peaked in Jan2009/Dec2010 global temperatures continued to rise (due to the lag) until March 2010. Although temperatures have fallen since they have remained sufficiently high to record the 4th warmest summer on record./ If you want to add that this is all on the back of a multicentury warming trend you can do but it doesn't take away from the fact that when it comes to describing warm periods GISS suddenly forgets to mention ENSO or any other natural variability. I think that is because they are agenda driven. Fleshed out a bit more but I don't think too far off what I was trying to get at in the earlier post. I don't think GISS don't mention ENSO, I just think they use it selectively. If we get headlines around 2010 being one of the hottest years on record I feel certain they won't be attributing any of that heat to the lingering affect of the 2009/2010 El Nino because they certainly aren't in the present document. Let me know if you think I'm off the mark here. (BTW I'm a man: old, white, male, Western, bigot, heavily invested in oil stocks as if you didn't already know [sarc off]) -
adelady at 23:08 PM on 12 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
Talk about lack of engineering imagination! Took my mum out today for her weekly shopping trip, got to talking about those wonderful days on the farm (1950ish) with no power supply. We had kerosene lamps in the house and a generator to run the dairy, but some neighbours used "windlights". A simple windmill like you see on lots of Oz farms for managing water, only these were run specifically to charge batteries for home lighting. If only! That technology could easily have been developed further to run farms and small communities. Instead all these nifty engineering tricks were abandoned when the 'lectric arrived in town and eventually all the farms along the transmission lines paid to be connected. -
JMurphy at 22:55 PM on 12 November 2010Real experts don't know everything
Norman wrote : "There is a person named Leland Palmer on differnt blogs that works to convince everyone that we will have a "runaway" greenhouse like what is speculated happened to Venus and all life will become extinct. Not getting that from any official document." Then why not stick to "official document(s)" ? Anyone, on any blog, can say or write anything - do you believe them all ? Why believe in anything that is contained in any blog (to do with AGW) unless it's backed up by evidence or peer-reviewed papers, etc ? And that means more than one paper usually - many so-called skeptics try to claim that one particular paper (or one particular person) is the right one, and try to ignore all the others that state otherwise. Unless, of course, you WANT to believe what you are reading on certain other blogs... -
Norman at 22:38 PM on 12 November 2010Real experts don't know everything
#85 scaddenp There is a person named Leland Palmer on differnt blogs that works to convince everyone that we will have a "runaway" greenhouse like what is speculated happened to Venus and all life will become extinct. Not getting that from any official document. -
Ned at 22:07 PM on 12 November 2010Climate cherry pickers: cooling oceans
Sorry for the interruption, but ... HumanityRules, two days ago you made some very critical remarks about GISS's report 2010 - How Warm Was This Summer?. You claimed that the report failed to include caveats about the role of El Nino in contributing to temperature records, and you suggested that this was a deliberate omission by GISS: Obviously they don't because any description of natural variability would confuse the message. You then observed that whether 2010 breaks a calendar-year record or not depends on how rapidly La Nina develops, and that if it does break a record that would be partially due to the effects of El Nino in the first half of the year. As I then replied in that thread, the GISS report you cite so dismissively actually discusses natural climate variability, the ENSO cycle, and its influence on annual temperature records in great detail. In what is only a 16-paragraph report, they refer to ENSO around a dozen times. And they clearly state that (a) whether 2010 breaks the record will depend on how rapidly La Nina develops, and (b) if 2010 does break the record it will be partially (but not entirely) due to the lingering effect of El Nino. In other words, GISS wrote exactly what you criticized them for not writing. Your comments seem so wildly off-base that I rather suspect that you didn't actually read the report before dismissing it. My guess is that you have a pre-existing assumption that GISS are a bunch of alarmists, and so obviously any report they write about a record-warm summer would be nothing but AGW hype. Or perhaps you were just echoing things you've read at "skeptical" sites elsewhere? In any case, it's off topic for this thread, and I'm sorry for the interruption, but I for one would appreciate some explanation from HumanityRules for her/his inexplicable remarks over on the original thread. -
Paul D at 21:43 PM on 12 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
RSVP: "However, I think as a thought experiment, they can save themselves all the trouble, as it doesnt take a whole lot to realize this likely an impossible pipe dream (unfortunately for mankind)." What you use today was once a dream. Electricity was once an impossible pipe dream. But somehow, in the past we had visionary people that ignored luddites that said it was an impossible pipe dream. There is a lot of red herrings, a lack of engineering imagination, strawmen and goodness knows what else being dished out here. -
Paul D at 21:18 PM on 12 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
Berényi Péter: "I am with you in principle. And there is nothing to stop those who back solar from setting up a pilot plant of this kind to demonstrate how it can actually jump start itself. You would have to give them some slack (I suppose) and provide some external energy source to prime the system. At least the first year." What on earth are you talking about?? There isn't a single energy system that can operate on its own. A coal fired power station is dependent on energy from external sources and is dependent on infrastructures that have developed for over hundred years. You haven't got a clue. That's the problem with idealism and why thorough research is required, some of which has been done already, but Berényi ignores. Please do the same insane experiment with coal, gas, nuclear etc. You need to prove that a coal fired power station doesn't depend on oil etc. and while you are at it, you would have to design vehicles and trains from scratch and develop the rail system from scratch based on first principles. The fact is, all current technology is interdependent, you move to new technologies gradually over many decades. -
Berényi Péter at 21:18 PM on 12 November 2010The science isn't settled
#12 Tom Dayton at 15:20 PM on 12 November, 2010 All sciences yield probabilistic statements. "Facts" simply have very high probabilities of being true--so high that it is downright silly to constantly refer to them as "maybes." That's not so. Some scientific statements are simply true, with no reference to probability whatsoever. For example in 1610 Galileo has discovered (using his improved telescope) that the surface of the Moon was not smooth, but had mountains and valleys on it. This statement can not be translated as "the surface of Moon being smooth has zero (or extremely low) probability", because there is no reasonable definition of a sample space with a probability measure on it that would fit the situation. The "translation" simply does not make sense. Galileo's proposition is either true or false. It turned out to be true, verified by the observed behavior of shadows on the lunar surface (which also made possible to measure the height of those mountains). -
RSVP at 21:00 PM on 12 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
Berényi Péter #112 "In this respect the distributed information processing system called free market is much more efficient than any scientific study could possibly be." I am with you in principle. And there is nothing to stop those who back solar from setting up a pilot plant of this kind to demonstrate how it can actually jump start itself. You would have to give them some slack (I suppose) and provide some external energy source to prime the system. At least the first year. But what they would have to prove (in an ideal place like Phoenix that has Sun, experienced engineers, silicon etc) is that you could produce chips using solar such that if allowed to continue, you would never need to go back to any other power source. Its like the difference between "knowing" you can go to the Moon, and actually doing it. However, I think as a thought experiment, they can save themselves all the trouble, as it doesnt take a whole lot to realize this likely an impossible pipe dream (unfortunately for mankind). -
Paul D at 20:41 PM on 12 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
clonmac: "I don't understand why there is a debate about the land use differences between a solar plant and a coal plant. It makes no sense to me." The only valid issue is the damage to the environment, climate change and biodiversity. The misleading and over simplified analysis by Berényi is not relevant. -
Paul D at 20:31 PM on 12 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
Berényi Péter: "If it takes more energy to put solar panels in operation than they are able to produce in their lifetime, power sold would not cover production costs," Prices have nothing to do with energy payback. You can't mix up economics with engineering and science analysis, which you consistently do here to mislead. 'Energy Payback Ratios' are an already well established analysis technique, so it isn't a question of 'if'. All current technologies, including solar PV and others, produce more energy in their life times than used to produce, install, maintain and decommission them. As I have already stated there is plenty of research and 'Energy Payback Ratios' are a well established way of assessing and comparing technologies. -
Paul D at 20:24 PM on 12 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
Berényi Péter: "The point is no such study is needed. Just a free market with no subsidies whatsoever and proper regulations (to ensure for example no high tech poison is left behind)." Wrong. Regulations are why you need a study. eg. Regulations are needed to account for the non-economic factors. Alternatively you have to include the 'non-economic' factors into economics, that then has an impact on business practice and prices. -
HumanityRules at 19:41 PM on 12 November 2010Climate cherry pickers: cooling oceans
14.Riccardo "I can't see any reason why we should split in two sides, skeptics and supporters of AGW. We simply can't close the budget" I agree with the second statement. And if this was purely a scienctific issue I'd agree with the first but unfortunately it isn't. There is uncertainty introduced by statements such as "We simply can't close the budget". The translation from science to comment and policy seeks to reduce that uncertainty. At times I think the scientists seek to reduce that uncertainty in a way that goes beyond the science. It's clear in the many recent articles and comments by Trenberth that he is only willing to publicly concede one way in which this problem is likely to be resolved (by improved ARGO data). That is I think where the two sides have to split. Not in the the scientific problem, we simply can't close the budget, but in the interpretation of what the problem means. (Maybe I've been reading too much about uncertainty at Judith Curry's) -
HumanityRules at 19:19 PM on 12 November 2010Climate cherry pickers: cooling oceans
Response to #13 I take your point, maybe I should have been a little more clear, Trenberth is interpreting the data as to best maintain strength in the overall theory of AGW. Everything you say is fine the problem is there are several conclusions that can be drawn from that predictament. My argument is that Trenberth, possibly Riccardo and possibly John Cook in this article all prefer to focus on the conclusion that maintains the theory, in this case by critising the data set. The fact that as you suggest things remain unresolved seem to necessitate the possibility that this issue may resolve in multiple ways. My suggestion is that criticism is specifically aimed only at the data that no longer fits with the overall theory (the resumption being the pre-2005 data is fine because it fits with preconceived notions). There's no real harm in either Riccardo or John holding this position on the blogosphere, there is great harm in Trenberth doing it is the scientific literature. I like the uncertainty expressed in the "long wait for resolution" it's just a pity it doesn't seem to be expressed well in the original article. -
Riccardo at 19:04 PM on 12 November 2010Climate cherry pickers: cooling oceans
HumanityRules it's not my habit to dismiss any data untill they're proved wrong, which is not the case here. Hence I don't dismiss neither pre- nor post- 2005 data. We are talking about a few years of disagreement between different different parts of the energy balance. As you may recognize in my comment #8, I did not split the time scale in two. I simply said that yes, the budget isn't closed yet but that it's not by that much; and I expressed hope that a better tracking of the energy flows will do the job. I'd like to point out that this issue is not about anthropogenic global warming, I can't see any reason why we should split in two sides, skeptics and supporters of AGW. We simply can't close the budget. There must be something missing or measured not accurately enough to track energy on short time scales to account for natural variability. This is the famous Trenberth's travesty. -
Phila at 18:26 PM on 12 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
BP: Just a free market with no subsidies whatsoever and proper regulations (to ensure for example no high tech poison is left behind). So that means no more subsidies for nuclear power or fossil fuels, right? None whatsoever, in any form? -
HumanityRules at 18:19 PM on 12 November 2010Climate cherry pickers: cooling oceans
8.Riccardo I think it's more than just an issue of poor data set. The energy imbalance/ocean heat content was summed up by trenberth himself in the following image, the missing heat is the orange section of A.
What Trenberth (and you) seem to be concerned with is only 5 years of data in a 15 year data set. If we follow your logic, that the data set is poor, we should possibly doubt all the data including the previous 10+ years when OHC and net radiation matched well. Few people seem to be concerned with doing that. That suggests to me that actually what is going on here is that Trenberth (and possibly you) are trying to fit the data to the theory, when that doesn't happen (after 2005) then you blame the data.
What really backs this up for me is that the post 2005 data should actually be the more robust/accurate/believable data set given that it is based on a technology that was specifcally designed to answer this question.
I just wonder whether you are willing to dismiss the pre-2005 data in the same way you dismiss the post-2005 data. I know this argument is going to breakdown into which data is better in an unresolved way, it would be nice if we could avoid that.
What I'd really like to be convinced of is that the quality of the OHC data isn't questioned at this point because it no longer fits the greater theory. My guess is pre-2005 little time would be taken in wondering about the OHC data because it seemed to fit so well with net radiation.
Response: "what is going on here is that Trenberth (and possibly you) are trying to fit the data to the theory"
What Trenberth is trying to do is fit data to data, not theory to data. Eg - he has two metrics of the same phenomenon - the planetary energy imbalance. One is measured by satellites which measures energy coming in and out, the other by the accumulation of ocean heat. Satellites find that the planet's energy imbalance has gradually been increasing. So had ocean heat until around 2005. Note that ocean heat measurements still find a positive energy imbalance - the planet is still accumulating heat - just not as much as the satellite data at the moment.
Scientists are scrutinising both the satellite and ocean data even as more data comes in and I expect the discrepancy will be resolved over the next few years. Here on the blogosphere where we breathlessly monitor monthly updates to every climate metric imaginable (guilty as charged), the long wait for resolution is a little painful. -
Tom Dayton at 16:43 PM on 12 November 2010The science isn't settled
Norman, the fact that all of scientific judgment is probabilistic is easy to discover. You don't have to take my word for it. Here is just one of many places you might start learning about that. -
muoncounter at 15:47 PM on 12 November 2010Ice-Free Arctic
#63: "actual amount of ice melt and refreeze it would be a straight line between the two for all the years." No. The September seasonal min anomalies are dropping much more rapidly than the March seasonal max. That's been discussed a number of times in prior articles.
This requires more intense melt seasons, followed by a widespread refreeze forming 'new ice'. New ice melts more rapidly than old ice.
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muoncounter at 15:33 PM on 12 November 2010Real experts don't know everything
#82: "the difference between facts arrived at by actual experimentation and direct observatin and facts arrived at by mathematical application of various theories." Yep, you gotta watch those theories, they sneak in everywhere: The application of quantum field theory (QFT) to chemical systems and theories has become increasingly common in the modern physical sciences. ... of interest in many fields of chemistry, including: nuclear chemistry, astrochemistry, sonochemistry, and quantum hydrodynamics. Makes climate science seem real in comparison. "Conditions have never become so bad in billions of years and vastly different climates that life did not manage to survive" I guess that's a question of the point of view you get when you study Earth Science. -
scaddenp at 15:30 PM on 12 November 2010Real experts don't know everything
"But nothing has happened at Earth that totally broke the chain of life so it had to start all over from scratch." Sounds like you are arguing against yet another strawman. Care to show me a paper that suggests warming would do such thing? Certainly nothing in the IPCC WG2. However, we arent just protecting ourselves from extinction, we also want to protect our way of life, maintain our mortality rate etc. I am sure our species would survive, just not as many of them. -
scaddenp at 15:27 PM on 12 November 2010Real experts don't know everything
Norman, I have responded on chaos over on here as requested. Now climate, geology, etc are not like chemistry in that you cant just take an earth and try your experiment in a lab with different conditions. However, the basic philosophy of model-predict-observe still applies. Look at all the successful "experiments" so far? And obviously paleoclimate consists of another set of past experiments though we cant read the measurements as accurately. "The only certain conclusion I could establish from Global warming is that the average temperatures will go up." No it doesnt. It says that stratosphere will cool, nights warming than days etc. I gave you a long list of prediction/confirmation - how can you assert that in face of them? As to your eyeballs on rate (I hope you dont do chemistry with such eyeballing), note where that graph came from? Icecore. "zero" is 1905. Even if you add the instrumental data to it, on that x-scale you cant easily differentiate rates. Current rate 0.08/decade. Glacial-interglacial is 0.007/decade. -
Tom Dayton at 15:21 PM on 12 November 2010Real experts don't know everything
I have replied on the thread The science isn’t settled, to Norman's comment on this thread "In the fuzzy world the reality of statement is a probability. In the empirical world of actual tests, it is a fact." -
Tom Dayton at 15:20 PM on 12 November 2010The science isn't settled
This comment of mine is a response to comments by Norman on the thread Real Experts Don't Know Everything. Norman, you are incorrect that there is a sharp distinction between "empirical" science that reveals "facts" versus "fuzzy" science that yields only probabilistic statements. All sciences yield probabilistic statements. "Facts" simply have very high probabilities of being true--so high that it is downright silly to constantly refer to them as "maybes." That is why consensus among scientists is important. I suggest you watch Naomi Oreskes's "Consensus in Science: How Do We Know We're Not Wrong?" I suggest you also read my comments 195 and 197 on the consensus thread. If you want to learn more, check out this paper by Duffy Hutcheon just as a start. -
scaddenp at 15:13 PM on 12 November 2010Climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted
Responding to Norman from another thread. Read the above. WHAT have you read that says climate is chaotic? This is an open research question with likelihood that it is not. -
Norman at 15:05 PM on 12 November 2010Ice-Free Arctic
#62 DSL I did go to your link. I like the actual ice measurement extent Actual ice extent. If you look at the actual amount of ice melt and refreeze it would be a straight line between the two for all the years. In the early mid 2000 decade there was less summer melt but less winter refreeze, after 2007 the summer melt is greater but so is the refreeze in the winter. Did you look at Figure 3 of my second link? Yes the 1970's were cool but figure 3 shows the 1930-1940 decades were as warm in the Arctica as they currently are. -
muoncounter at 14:30 PM on 12 November 2010Climate cherry pickers: cooling oceans
#9: "Temperature is only one indicator of energy within a system. " Granted. But as AD points out, there is more interannual variability in the ocean system. We also saw this in a prior discussion on ENSO, particularly in the Timmerman paper I cited there. The tropical Pacific climate system is thus predicted to undergo strong changes if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to increase. The climatic effects will be threefold. First, the mean climate in the tropical Pacific region will change towards a state corresponding to present-day El Nino conditions. It is therefore likely that events typical of El Nino will also become more frequent. Second, a stronger interannual variability will be superimposed on the changes in the mean state, so year-to-year variations may become more extreme under enhanced greenhouse conditions. Third, the interannual variability will be more strongly skewed, with strong cold events (relative to the warmer mean state) becoming more frequent. And that was written in 1999. -
Norman at 14:25 PM on 12 November 2010Real experts don't know everything
#80 muoncounter My main objection is when people take a item from "fuzzy" science and make it as solid as the empirical tested science. In the fuzzy world the reality of statement is a probability. In the empirical world of actual tests, it is a fact. This is a difference I am trying to emphasize. I am not against research in the fuzzy world, it's great. Here is a case of point. Based upon models of stellar dynamics and different stars it is probable that the Sun was 70% as bright billions of years ago. It is not a proven fact, (tested and verified...hard science) but on numerous web sites people use it as a verified fact and it just isn't. Maybe the average does not understand the difference between facts arrived at by actual experimentation and direct observatin and facts arrived at by mathematical application of various theories. Fuzzy science will forever remain in the realm of probability mentality. Hope that clears my point up for you. Another point from you: "Unbroken chain of life for billions of years." Well, no. Look harder: Climate change has had tremendous effects on life throughout the geologic record" I did not state that life has gone through trials and tribulations and had massive extinctions. But nothing has happened at Earth that totally broke the chain of life so it had to start all over from scratch. Conditions have never become so bad in billions of years and vastly different climates that life did not manage to survive.Moderator Response: Further conversation on how certain the science is, really is more appropriate for other threads such as The science isn’t settled. Further conversation on how bad this change is, is more appropriate for other threads such as It's Not Bad. -
DSL at 14:19 PM on 12 November 2010Ice-Free Arctic
"It is true the last decade of sea ice is much less than in the 1970's, but the 1970's were much cooler." hrmmm . . . I wonder why that could be . . . "But the last nine years do not show a downward trend." Wha? Whatchu smokin? Go here and then repeat that with a straight face. You might also note the wide swings in the last couple of years. Theory: decreasing summer ice means a rapid increase in new winter ice, but since the ice is new and not so thick, it melts quickly with the onset of summer. Each year, for the last decade, the multi-year ice volume has decreased. "They are sitting in a pattern determined by a current warming phase of the Arctic." Yes, a current warming phase--lasting at least 30 years. October temps were 4-6C above the 1979-2000 average. When was the last 30 year period that saw such a steady decrease? "Will it continue to warm up? The next few years should let us know." That's right. Keep watching the global temps. When you think it's time to do something about it, do it. I imagine others feel the same way (and are currently trying to do something about it).
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